Surf Report

While I await news of a couple of people who were in the areas hit by the tsunami, here's a couple of links.

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami
Created by South-East Asian bloggers and featuring the latest news and information about the tsunami, agencies supporting the victims and involved in relief, places where donations can be made, volunteering information and much more. News from on the ground.

Ways for Australians to help out

...and opportunities for the rest of you.

Open your wallets, people!

You think I don't notice your eyes glaze over when I talk about my trip. I notice. I notice alright.

...and you needn't think you're getting a postcard, either.

Oh joy...

Yet another reason why it's just so goddamn great to work for an under-funded community health organisation: one of our airconditioning units fell through the flimsy ceiling today. Only the heroism of a two-inch PVC pipe prevented it hitting the floor. Had it hit the ground, it would have come down right next to the pool table where a crowd of people had been enjoying a game a couple of nights before.

*sigh*

Listless Christmas

Like the sucker I am, I volunteered yesterday to brave the crowds and finish up the Christmas shopping on behalf of the Family Suzette. Friends, if the Christian ideas on the afterlife are true, then you'd be well advised to amend your ways immediately. Those souls bound for eternal damnation will spend the hereafter in a crowded department store jostling with cranky shoppers, spoilt and fractious children, stomach-churningly schmaltzy plastic crap, obscene displays of frenzied consumption and inane Christmas carols. Hear me when I say to you that you really don't want to spend eternity this way.

Anyway... like the dutiful aunty I try so hard to be, I clenched my teeth and headed for our local shopping centre, Garden City. The person responsible for naming Garden City was clearly possessed of a mind marinated in a tart vinaigrette of irony: the only association with gardening I can make out is the notion that money grows on trees. Or perhaps it's that time spent there cultivates poor manners, aggression and an appetite for polyester clothing and acrylic fingernails.

Santa, darling that he is, had promised Miss 6 a Bratz doll - the Rubber Ho's, as my sister would have it. (Just quietly, I think she's on the money.) For the uninitiated, Bratz are ten inches of surly, heavily made-up harlotry. If they could talk - and even if they were made flesh I'm not convinced they could form coherent sentences - their vapid conversation would be heavily peppered with, "Like, y'know, what-EVERRRRR." You even have the opportunity to buy a Bratz sushi bar for them to, like, y'know, hang out in, dude. They have had a significant impact on me in that I now realise Barbie ain't so bad after all. But Santa said yes, so who the hell am I to argue with that kind of authority? So off shopping I went.


Coming soon: Bratz Botox Salon

In the not-too-distant past, public groupings of half a dozen or so were considered a Public Gathering in this state, and were illegal without a permit. Were that still the case the air would have been humming with riot police batons at the checkout yesterday. Soon-to-be-landfill bounty successfully located, I joined the snaking queues/scrums and passed the time waiting by watching my fellow shoppers shove, ram, push, grab, elbow, snap, frown, complain, bitch and spend, spend, spend. That the scene was dominated by instructions to Have a Merry Christmas almost made me smile.

The truth comes out.

It's no laughing matter.

Witness the magnitude of ferret oppression in Queensland. I urge you to write to Amnesty for the sake of decency.

History in the Making

When future generations reflect upon these troubled times of ours, they will speak the word ferret in hushed and reverent tones and they will envy us... for we were there to witness it.

Comrades, this car boasted five - yes, five! - of these glorious statements of wild-eyed revolutionary fervour.

STOP PRESS!

Let the chatter of speculation cease; let the nay-sayers become yay!-sayers; let my detractors redirect their focus to one of my myriad other flaws, for I have bought a plane ticket!

I fly these wattle-scented shores early 2005.

... told you I was going.

Ounc upon a time.

There was oun sun. The sun was makinge the peepall sewetee then. the sun broke. An peepll sivd hapee evaaftr.

- Meelele, aged 6

Every Barbie has her Ken

Indulge me, if you’d be so kind, in a few minutes on my soapbox, for something has raised my ire. This particular irritant is an old one, and like woollens at the beginning of winter, is long due a good airing.

Sexism.

Now those few of you who are still with me at this point… rela-a-a-ax! I’m not bearing witness to the hideous gynaecidal atrocities of the phallocentric overlords today. Quite the opposite.

Several years ago now, I pulled up a female friend who had spewed out some repellent stereotyping of the chaps. Once I had pointed out to her that what she had said was, in fact, completely idiotic and shameful, she took it in good humour. Ha, she said, thoughtfully. I suppose that’s like reverse sexism, isn’t it? Umm…well no, actually…

Sexism: discrimination against, stereotyping of, patronising or otherwise offensive behaviour on the grounds of sex. (NB: This definition doesn’t say on the grounds of being female, it says sex - of which we’ll say there are two, for the sake of this argument.)

Huh, another friend says, hands on hips and eyes rolling, if you want a job done properly give it to a woman. (Oh, fuck off! …but would you be so kind as to pass the bucket before you do?) I hear this brand of absurd, indolent dribble vomited up more often than I care to tell you. Perhaps this is a consequence of keeping the company of women who cut their chops in the bra-burning Seventies: lovely, intelligent women, fine company and generally quite socially astute, but for this one aberration. These are women who care passionately about equality yet don’t seem to have given a moment’s decent brain time to what that term might actually mean. Women who stamp their feet and demand to be treated with respect, rail with clenched fists against being judged on their looks, their clothes, their gender alone. Women who can say Typical male. Goes to pieces under the slightest pressure. They’re babies, aren’t they? and keep a straight face. Women who would have the castrating knife out and flashing in an instant should such a sentiment be uttered by a man about a woman. It’s lazy, ignorant and insulting; even more galling when sprayed about within earshot of their husbands or partners and, more particularly, their sons.

Feminism: advocacy of equal rights and opportunities for women, esp. the extension of their activities in social and political life.

Misandry: hatred of men.

For every perky-breasted, slim-waisted, long-legged, passive, self-sacrificing angel we see in the media there is a tall, confident, broad-chested, athletic he-man aggressively clawing his way up his career ladder. Ideal Man has a flashy car, money to spare and is a hit with the ladies – needless to say, he’s a cracker in the sack, knows what a woman wants better than she knows herself and never fails maintain a thundering erection all night. He’s tough, yet sensitive. He can hold his own in a dust-up, is both king of the kitchen and potentate of the power tools. Quite a tall order, wouldn’t you say? Every bit as anxiety-inducing as Ideal Woman, perhaps?

Women are still way behind in the race for equality of pay and status, are still sexualised, and a plethora of other injustices besides. But the cement shoes of stereotyping that hold us down come in men’s fittings, too.

*Ahem*…thanks for listening.

Meet the Neighbours

You've gotta love a Tent Spider - so attractive and such good builders; qualities I prefer in all my friends.

This lass is about 50 mm across from toe-to-toe, and is resident in our backyard.

Clearly in a lather of ecstasy, my niece met Santa at kindy this week. Or rather, Santa met the back of Lani's head. The old guy was obviously a bit on the nose, but she summoned enough benvolent tolerance to unburden him of a present nevertheless.

365 Days in Purgatory

I spotted this while browsing a calendar stand recently, and my thoughts shortly turned to matters of religion. The nature of Hell, specifically.

(Ignore All)

I ran the spell checker - always a Faustian venture - over my recent "My Hammer..." post and here is a selection of the fruits of wisdom it bore:

fuckin' – Puccini; Fijian; Fagin; buckskin; firkin
zephyr – Sperry (!?); zipper; cipher; gopher; Gopher; zebra
gunna – guano; Guiana; Guyana; Genoa; gnaw; Guinea; Goa
arse* - Ares; Aries; arose; ARQ (!?)
ya – yahoo; Yahoo
whinging – hinging; hanging; honking; ionizing; winking
y’know – Yukon; Yakima
trouble – trouble

I've a sneaking suspicion that the composer of this spell checker is a frustrated traveller with an interest in the classics.

*Australian spelling and pronunciation of “ass”

Life's Rich Tapestry

People are interesting creatures, aren't they?

In my time I have been fortunate enough to know people who've been:

A piano tuner.
A tatooist.
A theatre props maker.
An acupuncturist.
A reflexologist.
A professional juggler who later became captain of an oil tanker.
A professional flugelhorn player.
A cartoonist who works on The Phantom.
A motorbike riding holistic dentist.
A composer.
A novelist.
A Professor of Engineering specialising in sewage treatment.
A jeweller.
An animatronics maker.
A professional Santa.
A hypnotist.
An East Timor aid worker.
An Afghanistan aid worker.
Lapsed doctors (several).
A glassblower.
Potters (many).
A submariner.
A show dancer.
A politician.
A pro soccer player turned Persian carpet importer
A playwright

........hmmm..........should get up off my fundament and do something with my life, I suppose.

My Hammer Is An Extension Of My Penis

An update on my neighbours' renovations.

Mercifully, their enthusiasm for pre-dawn hammering has tailed off, and I think I see why. On Sunday morning the thunder of discord replaced the zephyr of harmonious industry. As I opened one sleepy eye I mistook it for cats brawling, but slowly my brain formed the screeches into words...

He: (On the verge of tears) Why should I keep going when he tears out everything I do? I know I'm not the best builder in the world, but I want to learn! He's emasculating me!!

She: (On the verge of braining him) Are ya gunna come and get ya fuckin' breakfast or sit on your arse whinging? I'm not ya fuckin' slave, y'know!

Oh dear... trouble in paradise!